Mucio Kit Delgado, MD, MS

Major Goals: To examine the benefit of triage to a trauma center for injured older adults, whether this benefit is heterogeneous according to clinical characteristics, and whether differences in survival following complications explain why trauma center care has not been as beneficial for older adults as it has been for younger adults.

Raina M Merchant, MD MSHP FAHA

Major Goals: We propose to study the conversation on Twitter about several CV-related diseases. We propose to mine Twitter with the goal of understanding how these data can be used to: predict CV epidemiology, disseminate high impact CV health messages, and engage and communicate with a population of patients with CV disease. The overarching goals of this proposal are to understand the uses and limitations of this communication channel.

Zachary F Meisel, MD, MPH, MSHP

Major Goals: The objective is the explore the role that engaged patients can play in minimizing the risk of opioid misuse while achieving adequate pain relief for two painful, but usually self-limited, acute conditions: kidney stones and acute low back pain.

Eugenia Catarina South, M.D., M.S.P.H., Zachary F Meisel, MD, MPH, MSHP

Major Goals: To evaluate the effectiveness and implementation of two City of Philadelphia Resilience Project programs to reduce opioid overdose: (1) the Alternative Response Unit (ARU) that accompanies ambulances responding to overdoses and aims to deliver harm reduction and care linkage to people who refuse hospital transport, and (2) blight remediation of abandoned buildings and land.

Eugenia Catarina South, M.D., M.S.P.H.

Vacant and abandoned blighted spaces are a ubiquitous neighborhood environmental problem encountered by millions of city dwellers on a daily basis. Urban blight is associated with a variety of poor health indicators, including violent crime, cardiovascular disease, sexually transmitted diseases, and stress. The experience of stress from the conditions of one’s neighborhood may contribute to persistent socioeconomic-based health disparities. The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of a blight removal strategy, specifically abandoned house remediation, on biologically measured and self-reported chronic stress.

Zachary F Meisel, MD, MPH, MSHP

Major Goals: The objective is the explore the role that engaged patients can play in minimizing the risk of opioid misuse while achieving adequate pain relief for two painful, but usually self-limited, acute conditions: kidney stones and acute low back pain.

Zachary F Meisel, MD, MPH, MSHP

Major Goals: A mixed methods randomized trial to develop and test multiple messaging strategies, including narrative communication, to support knowledge transfer of evidence based guidelines related to treatment of behavioral disorders to providers who care for disadvantaged youth in the State of Pennsylvania. A specific goal of this project is to improve the adoption of evidence related to use of certain psychotropic medications to children with behavioral disorders.

Zachary F Meisel, MD, MPH, MSHP

Major Goals: To develop and disseminate economic evidence that informs substance use treatment policy and HCV and HIV care of substance users, and to increase the impact of this research by addressing the needs of integrated health system providers and payers.

Austin Kilaru, MD, MSHP

A randomized clinical trial to compare the effectiveness of enhanced outpatient services following discharge from the emergency department to short-stay hospital care. For more details: https://accelerationlab.upenn.edu/portfolio/path

Shoshana Aronowitz, PhD, FNP-BC and Daniel Ventricelli, MPH, PharmD

Major goals: To assess the barriers and facilitators to buprenorphine dispensing from the perspective of pharmacists, and to explore the buprenorphine-related pharmacy experiences of individuals with OUD who pick up their buprenorphine prescriptions at community-based pharmacies.

Mucio Kit Delgado, MD, MS

Major Goals: To validate the test accuracy of three commercially available smartphone-paired breathalyzers against a police grade handheld breathalyzer for measuring Breath Alcohol Content.

Eugenia Catarina South, M.D., M.S.P.H.

This is a secondary data analysis of the Healthy Brain and Behaviors study, a four-year RCT which tested the effect of nutritional supplement and cognitive behavioral therapy on childhood aggression. This study merges several existing datasets to explore the relationship between the physical and social environment and biologic stress reactivity and aggressive behavior in a pediatric population.

Mucio Kit Delgado, MD, MS

Major Goals: To conduct the formative research needed to guide the design of a mobile health intervention that leverages insights from behavioral economics for reducing binge drinking among college students.